After 22 years, Steve Maler is letting someone else direct CSC's free Shakespeare on the common

Thursday

Jul 13, 2017 at 8:00 AM

By Alexander Stevens, Correspondent

Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, the troupe that stages the annual free production of a Shakespeare play on the Boston Common, chose a big adjective when describing Allegra Libonati, the director of this summer’s show.

They called her “brilliant.”

It might be the first time they’ve used that word to describe anyone other than William Shakespeare.

“No, no, no,” says Libonati, a Boston resident, chatting on the phone after a rehearsal. “I’m not brilliant. I just try my hardest. I’ll tell you the smartest thing I do: I listen to the smartest people.”

Brilliant? She says no. But at least she must be special. This summer marks the first time in the 22-year history of CSC that artistic director Steven Maler has relinquished the directorial reins, allowing Libonati to lead the production of “Romeo and Juliet” that runs July 19 to Aug. 6 at the Parkman Bandstand on the Boston Common.

“It was very exciting to get the call,” says Libonati, enthusiastic throughout our conversation. “This is a dream project. ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is my favorite play in the world. It’s a play about the extremes of human emotions: extreme love, extreme hate, extreme joy, extreme revenge. It has all parts of being human.”

She also appreciates the play’s bold ambition.

“It tries to express what love is,” she says. “And it does it better than any other play.”

Libonati has already directed “Romeo and Juliet” twice, so she has ideas about what the play needs in order to succeed.

“The play has a lot to do with hate, but it’s even more about love,” she says. “The more you dig into the love in the play, the more you find the motivations for the characters. Even revenge comes from a place of love.”

Libonati believes that the violence in “Romeo and Juliet” makes it a timely choice. Although she’s decided to stage the play with period-appropriate costumes – no gangbangers with Uzis in this production – she believes the audience will make easy connections with a modern-day world that seems consumed by violence.

“The play speaks so passionately to the continuous and unmitigated violence around us,” she says. “And the play asks how it can be stopped.”

Perhaps it’s fortunate that Libonati has plenty of experience with the play, because she found herself at the helm of this show on short notice. The original director stepped down from the post. Suddenly, Maler had a script, a cast and an opening night, but no director.

That’s when he made the call to Libonati.

“We very quickly cooked up an idea and a plan for executing it,” she says.

Maler may not be directing the show, but that doesn’t mean he can’t offer advice. He’s a veteran of the peculiar nature of staging a play on a common, to a sprawling audience, in the middle of a city. Patrons may be watching the play, but some of them are also having a picnic. So, yes, the viewers are concerned that Tybalt has recognized Romeo at the party, but they also want someone to pass them the potato chips.

“Steve keeps saying, ‘Remember where the show is taking place. Remember the audience. Remember how far away from the stage some of them will be,’ ” says Libonati. “He wants the show to have the maximum impact for the most people possible.”

Libonati seems to be taking that advice to heart.

She says, “We want to meet the audience on their terms.”

And in their laps. The director envisions a production that will bleed into the audience. She’s designing spots in the seating area where scenes can be played among the patrons.

“Brilliant” is a big word, but when you take a look at Libonati’s resume, you start to see where they got it.

Like many of the great directors, she’s got a knack for opera as well as theater. She just directed an acclaimed production of “The Rake’s Progress” for Boston Lyric Opera. She’s a veteran of outdoor theater, having directed for 12 seasons at the Summer Theatre of New Canaan, Connecticut. She directed “The Snow Queen,” “The Pirate Princess” and “The Light Princess,” as the resident director at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge.

She’s 37.

It all started with a production of “The Island,” a drama about political prisoners on South Africa’s Robben Island. It was an ambitious undertaking for any director, especially for Libonati: at the time, she was a student at New York University, directing her first show.

“The Island” hit a nerve with audiences and launched the career of a director.

“With that show, I learned how theater can transport you to a time and place, and it can make you feel a connection to people whose lives are completely different than your own,” she says. “I thought, ‘Oh, so that’s what theater can do!’ ”

And now she’s trying to do it again.

She thinks “Romeo and Juliet” can tell us something about being human, but, on another level, she thinks it’s a good old-fashioned thriller.

“The first part of the play is so delightful and intriguing,” she says. “But the second part gets terrifying and thrilling. It gets very intense. We need to create a nail-biter. We need to take the audience on a ride.”

Is it harder to create a nail-biter when everyone knows how the story ends?

“No, I think that makes it more of a nail-biter!” she says. “We know what’s going to happen. So we sit there watching this inevitable train wreck. That’s the definition of a tragedy.”